Melbourne Fans Win a Victory For Supporters’ Culture

This is the kind of scene no football club’s PR manager wants to deal with:

The protest was one of several protests organised by fans against the Melbourne Victory’s home stadium, the Telstra Dome.

The year before, the Melbourne Victory had imprinted itself on Australia’s sporting landscape with an impressive season in which it came first on the ladder and went on to win the finals’ series. That success was mirrored by the club’s success in attracting the country’s largest fan base for a football team. And yet, less than a year later, Melbourne Victory supporters and Telstra Dome management were embroiled in a bitter battle that stained a season later called a “wasted year” by the club’s chairman, Geoff Lord.

The context:

The Melbourne Victory are the only A-League team to have outgrown their original stadium. It only took the club a year to realise that the 18,500 capacity Olympic Park was too small to host the side’s home matches, so the majority of the second season’s home games were shifted to the 56,000 capacity Telstra Dome.

The move to the Telstra Dome signalled the start of what proved to be a hugely successful season for the club. Buoyed by crowds breaking national attendance records on a weekly basis, the team soared to the Premiership. After narrowly winning its way into the Grand Final, the Victory made history by smashing their Grand Final opponents, Adelaide United, 6-0. Archie Thompson, the club’s star striker, etched his name into football history by scoring five of the six goals.

It was always going to be tough following up a season like that. Fred, Melbourne’s influential Brazilian playmaker from season two, moved to MLS’ DC United for a more attractive pay packet; central defender Adrian Leijer made his break by landing a deal with Fulham FC; and the club’s off-season recruitment, while promising at first, did not deliver. Games that would have been won before were drawn, or lost. The Victory finished the season in 5th place, out of contention for the finals series.

Relations between active supporters and the Telstra Dome had always been strained and on-field frustrations only worsened matters. The Northern Terrace, an independent and passionate supporter group, complained that requests for a drum, megaphone and over-sized flags were rejected by the stadium, along with other requests. For football supporters trying to replicate the highly organised and colourful support seen in South American and European football, the stadium’s prohibitions seemed draconian and unreasonable. In a meeting with stadium and club officials, one leading supporter was told that the drums could initiate a “sense of tribalism”.

At the start of the third season, the Northern Terrace decided to move its support from the Telstra Dome’s Level one to Level three. According to them, Level three offered “more space” and “removed the problems of overcrowding and infiltration of undesirable influences.” But the move was met with resistance by the Telstra Dome, as the Northern Terrace described in its fanzine:

The first 2 home games went off without a hitch, but come the third game, the NT were told that standing wasn’t allowed on L3. To this day, no documentary evidence relating to Telstra Dome has been provided that suggests that standing on Level 3 is unsafe. With the problems that existed on Level 1, combined with our exemplary record with discipline this year, we would still suggest that Level 3 is indeed more safe.

The Northern Terrace supporters protested in a number of ways. During several home matches, they remained silent throughout long periods of the game. And prior to one match in December, they staged the protest shown above, declaring in no uncertain terms what they wished for the Telstra Dome.

Multiculturalism and football

When the A-League was launched three years ago, few predicted it would enjoy quite the level of success that it has. Support like that seen in Melbourne was unthinkable.

One of the A-League’s major challenges was overcoming a deeply ingrained stigma in mainstream Australian thinking that associated football with violence. The A-League’s predecessor, the National Soccer League (now defunct), was undermined by teams whose supporter bases could be delineated along ethnic lines. The Australian-Croatian community had the Melbourne Knights, the Australian-Italian community had the Marconi Stallions and the Australian-Greek community had South Melbourne. Reports of ‘hooliganism’ and violence in Europe only served to deepen mainstream Australia’s distrust of football.

After being labelled hooligans by the Herald Sun, the Melbourne Victory fans held up this banner and turned their backs to show how they felt about it.

The conflict between the Telstra Dome and Melbourne supporters echoed this. One Melbourne Victory fan, Guido, argued on his blog that the issue had deep cultural roots:

I think this arose from a inherent suspicion that ’soccer supporters are more dangerous’. This is a perception which is based on incidents overseas, and also from the predilection of some fans to rip flares. However I have stated on this blog on previous occasions I don’t believe that fans watching football are more dangerous than other sports.

I wonder whether the organised type of support that is characterised by having hundreds of young men (mainly) chanting and jumping in unison scares the bejesus out of stadium managers that are unfamiliar with this type of support, and are more used to AFL (Australian Rules Football – a distinctly Australian sport) which is a diffuse sort of support with cheer squads which are controlled by the clubs (something that the Blue and White Brigade (a leading football supporter group) is not).

The conflict between the Telstra Dome and Victory supporters is not about drums, megaphones and over-sized flags. Those things are symbols of a style of support that is foreign – and frightening – to the Telstra Dome.

The club finally acts

Throughout the conflict, the club itself appeared to be playing on the side of the Telstra Dome, much to the frustration of supporters. Victory striker Archie Thompson was reprimanded by the club for his words on a public radio station:

I hear all this Telstra Dome stuff, and to be honest, I think we should play somewhere where the supporters are happy to come and support us. If they are not happy supporting us at the Telstra Dome, then let’s bloody well move … I’m sort of over hearing about the Telstra Dome. To be honest, the supporters make the club. If the supporters aren’t happy we have to do something about it.

I’m probably gonna cop it for saying it — the supporters are the ones that build this club and pay (for) their tickets and if they aren’t happy then we have to do something about it.

The club did not react too kindly to Thompson’s rant, but supporters felt vindicated. The following home game, the Northern Terrace held up a large banner saying: “Fans make the club – thanks Archie.”

Surprisingly, it was only two weeks later that Geoff Lord, the Melbourne Victory chairman, declared that the season had been “wasted”. On radio – the same radio station Thompson had spoken to weeks earlier – he apologised to fans, admitting that the situation with the Telstra Dome had been handled poorly.

In February, Lord delivered on his promise to improve the situation for supporters at the Telstra Dome. In a press release, the club announced that fans attending the club’s home matches in the Asian Champions League would be permitted to bring in drums and trumpets, oversized flags and banners, and megaphones. Changes to seating arrangements were also promised, ensuring that Victory fans would now have large, dedicated supporter areas behind both goals.

The first of Melbourne’s Asian Champions League matches was played last week to a crowd of 23,000. As promised, Victory supporters were allowed oversized flags and drums. I talked with Tunna, a leading supporter who was instrumental in talks between the club, Telstra Dome and fans. About the support, he had this to say:

In terms of the atmosphere that Melbourne fans have become known for, it was a very good effort. You only have to watch the replay and speak to the players to realise how much of a difference it does make. The stadium was like a morgue for the most part of last season. We’d hate for it to ever go back to that.

“There remain some issues specifically to do with the reserved bays and oversized flags. We are confident that this will be sorted before the next home game against Gamba Osaka.

Like most Melbourne Victory fans, Tunna’s heart for football is big. And like most Melbourne Victory fans, the changes to the way supporters are treated has given him cause for hope:

“I started thinking about the awakening on a grand scale of the North Terrace. Again, I felt a sense of achievement that the hard work that we were all putting in was making a difference and the football supporters in this city taking massive strides forward.”

one leading supporter was told that the drums could initiate a “sense of tribalism”.

what in the hell kind of thing to say is that? Wow. I really hope the powers that be in A-league make a policy of being more supporter friendly. (kinda like I wish MLS would do)

Whenever I hear stories like this in terms of MLS it makes me kinda laugh especially since ALL of the sports used to be like this in terms of support in the US; the oldest NFL teams still have a collection of songs that people used to sing all game long that are now just blared on the PA intermittently. Hell the college game still is like that with the fanaticos and drums and stuff.
For whatever reason when it reaches the pro game here, there is a lot of resistance to having, ya know, ‘fun’ at the stadium.
It seems like more MLS clubs are ‘getting it’ and allowing more flags and drums and stuff which I think more than anything else will turn people on to the game. No one can deny that a game in MLS (or A-league or any other league) doesn’t look and feel infinitely better when the supporters section is packed and in full voice.

You might find that the club and Telstra Dome found the video evidence of jumping up on Level 3 damning enough.

That’s not to say that the stand was coming down just that it was extremely unsafe. If some supporters felt there was no evidence of this, its can only be because they weren’t high enough up in the echelons of supporter group fandom to be presented with the evidence.

Eric, Nice piece on the fan issues v stadium management. Good outcome too. I will link to your article from our stadium management pages on EVMI (European Venue Management Institute) – we train stadium managers globally and your insights are a timely reminder that stadiums serve several different customers – the team, the sponsors, the owners, the city council etc – but not least of which are the fans! Best of luck with the new supporter-centric opportunities.

By contrast to your experiences in Australia, the owners of Toronto FC (a new MLS franchise, part of the MapleLeafs Sports Group) embraced fan groups and encouraged new identities/flags/songs from the new team’s supporter groups when they constructed the team’s home ground of BMO Field last year. The result? The first sellout season for a MLS team… Torontonians love the noise and spectacle of Toronto FC home games (now one of the ‘hot’ tickets in the former hockey-only town!)

@ Ian #1. The first quote in my article was taken from the Northern Terrace eZine, from an article written by Tunna. Tunna is the leader of the Blue and White Brigade fan group and has been one of the key people in negotiations between the club, Telstra Dome and fans. So he is certainly high up in the echelons of the supporter groups. And according to him, “no documentary evidence relating to Telstra Dome has been provided that suggests that standing on Level 3 is unsafe.”

Thanks for the link! Interestingly there is now a purpose built rectangular stadium for soccer and rugby being built in Melbourne right now. This is a major achievement in this Australian Rules Football obsessed city. A group of fans has created a group called the Melbourne Victory Fans Stadium Action Group (VFSAG) to lobby for designated safe standing areas as those present in German stadia to be built there.

This is important because it would signify that soccer support is different and needs to be seen to be different.

The conflict between the organised MVFC fans and Telstra Dome seems to have eased somewhat, but it has significantly slowed (or somewhat undone) the momentum of support for the club generated from Season 2. A mistake for a club that, being in its infancy, should be trying to attract as many supporters to their games as they can.

Many football supporters who were not members of the organised groups, including me, ended up supporting the Terrace groups because we saw it as an attack on football supporters in-general (something which is not alien to an Australian football supporter given the history of the sport in this country).

Had the club backed its supporters from the outset instead of appearing to back the stadium management, the supporter groups would not have protested as they did, and the crowds would not have dropped off as much as they did toward the end of Season 3.